Traditionally, data communications among different components of computing devices and of computing systems have occurred via electrical wiring, such as copper wiring on printed circuit boards. However, with the increasing speed of various computing components, such as processors and memory, electrical wiring as a connection mechanism has become a bottleneck to transferring data among different components. Therefore, manufacturers have been looking to alternatives other than electrical wiring to connect different components together for data communication purposes.
One alternative is to communicate data among different components of computing devices and of computing systems using light. Such optical data transfer is typically significantly faster than electrical data transfer using electrical wiring, and further does not have the limits that electrical data transfer does. Optical wave guides in particular have become a seriously considered candidate for optically transferring data among different components.
To optically connect different printed circuit boards together, however, a connector is typically required. While light has excellent propagation characteristics in general, a large amount of loss of the light may occur at the connection point if a precise connection between the optical wave guides of two circuit boards is not achieved. A connector for optically connecting the optical wave guides of two such components to one another should also be able to be mechanically attached and detached as needed. Mechanical attachment of a connector to the optical wave guides of the components should thus provide for precise optical connection between the components.
For these and other reasons, therefore, there is a need for the present invention.